OK, did the charger swap today. I joined the ranks of owners of gen1 Tesla w dual chargers that blew an input fuse. It seems to be an epidemic. To be sure I could just swap in a replacement for the master, I bought a gen1 charger on Ebay. Packaging looked terrible when it arrived, the mailman actually dumped it in front of my garage door, but I inspected it and could not find damage, not even on the alu coolant lines sticking out, so I was lucky. I had a former colleague and fellow Tesla nut give a hand. We figured out a way to avoid spillage by lifting the old unit after disconnecting one side, to drain it back into the coolant bottle and connect the replacemt unit to the open line to let it fill its heatsink so in the end we lost maybe an ounce of coolant, I did not even need to add coolant. The car charged happily as soon as I closed the power distribution box with a screw next to the magnetic interlock. Really, the most difficult part of the whole thing was to remove the Bolsters next to the rear seat back. I figured a way using the seatbelt inserted on top of the clip and yanking on that to avoid bending them. The weirdest part was finding out Tesla used 11mm bolts for the rear seat frame. Never before have I used 11mm on a car. You can completely disassemble a Prius with a set of 8, 10, 12 and 14mm, with the vast majority of bolts being 10mm.
Anyway, opening the old master charger revealed one of the two 50A semiconductor fuses on the charger inlet to be blown. This seems to happen more on cars with dual chargers, although before it failed I was never charging at more than 40A. Maybe it is because the dual charger has the coolant loop split into two, so each charger only gets half the coolant and thus runs hotter than the single charger, because at up to 40A the slave charger is not used, the full 40A is handled by the master, but it gets only half the coolant that a single charger car sends through the loop. It seems that Ebay notices that a lot of 50A fuses are bought for these broken chargers, because a 50A fuse costs $50 while the same model 60A fuse costs $9. Go figure. Anyway, the car is back on the road and it cost me only some hours and $140 for a used charger. Looking at the cost of the fuses, I got that working charger for scrap value plus two good fuses! Cor. On Tue, Jul 16, 2024, 10:43 AM (-Phil-) <p...@ingineerix.com> wrote: > The only issue with swapping is you still have to physically swap their > locations, so it involves opening the coolant loop. You then have to send > a CAN sequence using Tesla toolbox to swap them logically. Using some > hose clamp pliers you can usually do the coolant loop without spilling too > much, but it's still messy. Be sure to at least have a gallon of G48 > coolant on-hand before you start! > > For the cost, it's not worth swapping a bad unit. Just replace it. > > Yeah, I can re-enable supercharging on the old MCU units, but I might have > to downgrade software to do it. They have added more security lately. > > On Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 10:36 AM Cor van de Water < > cor.vandewa...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Awesome, thanks for the info! >> I ordered a cheap used gen1 charger just to make sure that I can swap >> in a charger. >> Another thought I had: if the Master is broken and the Slave is good, >> then just swapping the two will again allow me to charge at up to 40A, >> right because only for over-40 Amps charging will the slave charger be >> activated. You can see that when connecting to a 48A charger, the >> current first runs up to 24A to dial in the Master charger, then it >> sits at 24 for a while, then it ramps up the Slave charger until the >> pair is drawing 48A combined. >> Anyway, will be digging into that soo to get this car back on the >> road. Then I will come to you for Supercharging re-enabling. >> Do you care if it still has the original computers? I did not want to >> invest $1500 or something like that just to upgrade to later version >> computers.while the car stays the same... >> Regards, >> Cor. >> >> On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 11:36 PM (-Phil-) <p...@ingineerix.com> wrote: >> > >> > The Gen1 chargers are not known to be the most reliable. Sounds like a >> problem in the PFC stage. They are not very serviceable even if you can do >> board-level repair due to their mechanical design. I suggest just ordering >> a used one for a couple hundred $. >> > >> > If you wanted to save buying one, you could convert the existing slave >> to a master, and move it to the passenger side, and remove the master (so >> you'd be down to 40A max charging), but this requires some hassle including >> altering the config so the car doesn't look for the 2nd slave charger. >> > >> > It's also possible to upgrade to the Gen2 charger, but it would require >> also replacing the HV junction box that contains the DCFC contactors and >> some harnessing. >> > >> > On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 11:26 PM Cor van de Water via EV < >> ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: >> >> >> >> Hoping to find someone that has experience with the early Tesla model >> S and >> >> X 40A onboard charger. >> >> My S85 actually has 2, having the ability to take up to 80A, up to 20kW >> >> level 2 charging speed. >> >> But, recently it refuses to charge: everything seems ok when plugging >> in, >> >> but after half a minute the car ramps the current up, as soon as it >> even >> >> steps to 1 Amp, it fails with warning: "charging slowed - poor grid >> power >> >> quality possible. Try different charging location. >> >> >> >> Well, no problem with the charging location, I have read that this is >> >> likely a problem in the charger or the circuit feeding the AC to the >> >> charger. >> >> Before I rip my rear seat out to get to the dual chargers, I hope >> someone >> >> has seen this behavior before and can give me a heads up what to >> expect. >> >> Preferably I have materials for repair at hand and do not need to >> leave the >> >> car ripped apart for too long, it is in a public location. >> >> I do have the service manual, but that just tells how to remove the >> onboard >> >> chargers, not how to repair them, though I am comfortable >> troubleshooting >> >> and soldering... >> >> Cor. >> >> -------------- next part -------------- >> >> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... >> >> URL: < >> http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20240715/12915e2c/attachment.htm >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org >> >> No other addresses in TO and CC fields >> >> HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/ >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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